“Milestone” meeting for Fish Creek sewerage working group

FISH Creek may be a small step closer to “a reliable and cost-effective sewerage solution” following the first meeting of the Fish Creek Community Development Group’s (FCCDG) new “Poo War” working group on Wednesday March 31, 2021.

 FCCDG president Craig Privett and secretary Jeff Entrop said the evening meeting, held in the Fish Creek Hotel, represented “another exciting milestone now achieved” for the wider Fish Creek community.

The executive members were referring to the big turnout of local people who attended the public meeting, called by the FCCDG to revisit the town’s serious and ongoing sewage and wastewater problem, held on Wednesday March 17, 2021.

“The working group is bringing together all those wonderful individuals who nominated themselves to be part of such a group at the public meeting in the Fish Creek Memorial Hall a fortnight ago,” Craig said.

“The working group will strive to help the Fish Creek community clean up the grey and waste water issues and to finally implement a reliable and cost-effective sewerage solution for Fish Creek,” he said.

“We decided not to go too hard in prompting attendance to this meeting, mainly to better understand what the real interest would be in helping this initiative get off the ground.

“We’re pleased to have had about 50 per cent of those 20 or so people who listed themselves for a working group either commit their interest and/or actually attend the first working group meeting.

“Keeping it a casual affair, we briefly revisited the conversation outcomes of our FCCCDG Town Hall Meeting and explored possible next steps for the Poo War,” Craig said.

“We identified a number of key questions, including, what is it that we need to now collectively achieve and how are we going to get there? and how are we going to work together and how do we track our progress?

“We also asked ourselves, which influencers do we need to reach out to, those who may be able to help us?” he said.   

“We’ve decided to split the working group into two subcommittees, with one of them to initially focus on our key message as a community, and to summarise all of our main concerns as captured in our first Town Hall into a 150-word Community Statement.”

Jeff said the working group meeting also crystallised other questions needing concise answers, too, for example, what are we actually wanting to say as a community? What are we asking for? Why is this important to our future and the future of our community?

“We also want to determine how loud does our voice need to be to ensure we are heard, gaining the attention we need to obtain the right level of funding support from both the local council and the State Government,” he said.

The second sub-committee, Strategy and Marketing, is described by Jeff as “a wise and passionate group who will help determine the overall plan that maps out the ‘how’ we make this all happen … focusing initially on how we share the Community Statement with everyone in our town.”

Craig said “we’ll connect every couple of weeks for an hour in the Oberon Room of the Fishy Pub to check in on our progress, with the next gathering scheduled for Wednesday April 14 from 7 pm to 8 pm.

“Each month we’ll ensure to update the broader community via a FCCDG Monthly General Meeting, which are held every third Wednesday of the month, and through the Fishy News and our various social media channels,” he said.

“If you’d like to receive regular email updates – please make sure to shoot through a note to either me or to Jeff on craig@fish creek.com.au or [email protected]

“Every voice in the Fish Creek community matters, and we’d love to have your involvement and gain your views,” Craig said.

“Even if you have too much going on in your world and you can’t commit to helping us out with ‘the doing’, please don’t hesitate to come and join us for one of our fortnightly progress updates … join in on the conversation, share your thoughts, observations, feedback … “

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